Why A White Woman And Black Man Will Lead The US’s Top Paper

Journalist Paul Delaney wrote a column on why he feels the NY Times’ appointment of the first woman and Black man to lead the 160-year old paper, deserves more public recognition.

The paper recently appointed Jill Abramson as the first woman to be appointed editor-in-chief, and Dean Baquet as the first African American managing editor.

Delaney writes:

The monumental change deserves more attention than the relatively subdued reaction it received. It also deserves more background and history, coming nearly three decades after women and minorities settled separate discrimination lawsuits against the paper. To my mind, the promotions represented the culmination of that legal action.

The suits, by minorities in 1972, and women two years later, accused the NY Times’ newsroom managers of favoring white men in hiring, promotion, beat assignments and wages. At the time, not one black had risen above the position of reporter, and the highest-ranking women worked in “women’s news” and covered social events.